The role of the cultural worker is to discern, nurture, cultivate, and encourage the existing culture of a place.

Mary Welcome (Palouse, Washington/Idaho) is a multidisciplinary cultural worker. As an artist-organizer, her projects are rooted in community engagement and the development of intersectional programming to address equity, cultural advocacy, inclusivity, visibility, and imagination. She brings a nuanced perspective to the contemporary field, as an organizer working in service to small towns, as a cultural producer across American geographies, and as a facilitator of place-based arts programming.

She believes in small towns, long winters, optimists, parades, and talking about feelings.

She serves as the first ever as the artist-in-residence at a statewide government agency with the Washington State Department of Transportation and a civic designer for the City of Palouse.

Her collective and collaborative partners include Hi-Vis Agency, Cabin-Time, Homeboat, M12 Studio, Brokeback Palouse, the Department of Public Transformation, Camp Little Hope, Art of the Rural, Common Field, Springboard for the Arts, and the United States Postal Service.

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